Curtis | N[Ø}Bødy
Lesley Carhart 
I don’t know who needs to hear this or comprehend it still, but most if not all billionaires don’t care if the economy crashes. They have so much money and power they can be safe as a bug in a rug. They can then take advantage of a collapsed economy and suffering society to force even more workers into defacto slavery.
In the future America is plummeting towards, even skilled workers live in indentured servitude in company towns, completely dependent on employers for healthcare and education. There are no effective worker rights, and most companies are owned by a few monopoly mega corporations.
Unions, as well as labor, consumer, and antitrust protections have prevented this to some degree in America, but half the voting country is working hard to get rid of all of those things as fast as possible.
Mike (no not that one)It's absolutely amazing how completely people can be turned against their own interests....
Sam Bowne 
@hacks4pancakes There will be a Gilded Age of great corruption, and then a revolt against it, bring another New Deal of socialism.
The Doctor@hacks4pancakes They're trying to bring them back. Those of us who grew up in western PA have been saying "Oh, shit" for years now.
WTL@hacks4pancakes I know people who are trapped in a job they loathe but can't afford to leave because of the health insurance.
It's not right.
Shecky - Third Wheel@hacks4pancakes The world of Shadowrun or Cyberpunk is upon us. It is an unfortunate case but one that those of us who have played those games, should recognize all too well.
Brush up on your running skillz chummer.
Brush up on your running skillz chummer.
Mx VerdaI'm mid postdrome of asthma attack. You can't make me walk to the bathroom until it's that or piss myself rn.
There are people with significantly more restrictive disabilities (innate, acquired, situational, combo, and / or otherwise) who can't do more than"self-reliance".
You practice running if you can, sure. Good for multiple reasons (only uphill or flat, never downhill, for your joints!)
But I'm fucked by long covid because anti maskers are fucking stupid, deadly animals when they don't remember to care.
TheDrPinky@hacks4pancakes honestly see it happening, and it feels so bleak.
rye@hacks4pancakes A precursor to Weyland-Yutani.
Anansi (spider)@hacks4pancakes industrial revolution second round in a climate change and ubiquituous megacorporate surveillance with fascist orientation. The associated social unrest could come like in the first round in the 1800s in Europe.
Dave C.@hacks4pancakes You forgot that they will also buy up businesses and land as their owners financial situations falter.
@davesomebody and with a crippled government there will be no antitrust protection
@hacks4pancakes yep, a lot of inflation in the housing market came from large companies buying up single family homes as they came on the market. I don't understand what their endgame in this even is. But they found a place where regulations were lax and struck while the iron was hot.
@davesomebody no real endgame, just a greedy maw that can never be satisfied
@hacks4pancakes The greedy maw thing does confuse me. I thought the point was to sell these homes layer for profit. But they paid top dollar. How do you take profits on so many without creating a slump?
@hacks4pancakes I suppose there is driving the original company into bankruptcy, default on financing that paid for assets then acquire company in fire sale through shell company. I've seen that happen too many times.
@hacks4pancakes I don't think most people are aware that the wealthy don't risk their own money. Once your net worth passes a certain point you can leverage assets in ways us normies can't imagine. Many live paycheck to paycheck. Some have enough that they are into managing the risk to what they got. A select few are dealing in financial instruments you could not imagine.
Trillion ByterThe corporations can rent them indefinitely, can sell if the market is good, can use them as an asset/collateral for loans, and can sell in a down market and take a tax write off.
If they do sell, it might only be a shell game where an investor in the selling company sells to another company they own. If they sell at a lower price, the assessed value goes down, so the buying company pays less property tax.
Their financial options beggar the rest of us.
hex@davesomebody @hacks4pancakes this is the wrong way to think about things. Corporations are malthusian. There is no end game, they just keep consuming resource to reproduce themselves until they destroy their environment and catastrophically collapse.
Malthusian organisms with no predators caused one of the first great extinctions, now they're causing the 6th. They will also die. They are not self aware so they don't actually care.
CJ Paloma Likes Longer Days@davesomebody @hacks4pancakes Some are buying them up more to rent to the plebes, for passive income. So especially w/ rents coming in, they could buy a ton more in the slump (for cheap)…
Even if that fails and a billionaire has lost (seriously) 90% of their assets, no one with 100 mil would ever need to worry about any slump.
Some folks are just addicted to more, more, more, $$$ because they've totally lost the plot of how to be decent people..
Jeff@davesomebody @hacks4pancakes Two things: at the logistics/rationalization level, they're likely counting on monopoly power to manipulate the supply side to get the price they want.
Second: check your theory of mind. I strongly suspect that most billionaires have some neurodivergence grade fundamental brain architecture differences from most of the population. The greedy maw is a hardware feature that cannot be turned off and the real problem: point one is just how they bullshit themselves.
ottominati@davesomebody @hacks4pancakes like here in Canada, and I suspect a lot of money laundering as well.
@ottominati @hacks4pancakes gee, if is normies get caught money laundering it is a big deal. If a corporation gets caught they have to pay a fraction of what that earned doing of. Why didn't the just officially tax it in the first place?
Chris Gervais 🎸🥁💻@hacks4pancakes Correct. Plus, a crashing economy means more things (like companies) they can pick up on the cheap and screw...well, everybody involved.
Chris Petrilli@chrisgervais @hacks4pancakes don't worry, they're also shorting the economy so they can make money on the way down too
@petrillic @hacks4pancakes It's the American way 🇺🇸🫡
KidKo92@hacks4pancakes I don't think the question is hearing/comprehending. It's who needs to acknowledge the obvious? And that answer is everyone. And why they won't falls into 3 categories - Resignation, ignorance/denial, or privilege/apathy.
@kidko92 I agree
Wandering Star@hacks4pancakes In every economic situation, somewhat profits, and some of those people are always rich.
Stephen Elliott~Buckley@hacks4pancakes Mr. Potter, it's a wonderful life, is their role model
Daughter of DiscordI will pour diatomaceous earth all over those fucking rugs
Bandersnatch
DziadekBasically an extreme form of capitalism. Very few of our political leaders are affected by the policies they implement.
Interpipes 💙@hacks4pancakes it’s all about hoovering up distressed assets in the fire sale that follows
Joe ❌👑@hacks4pancakes Yes, it's an opportunity for them to buy up more assets at a rock bottom price from distressed sellers.
vet-ingenting@hacks4pancakes
It seems to me in any nation on Earth, no matter how poor, there are always rich people on top, and multitudes of poor beneath them.
It seems to me in any nation on Earth, no matter how poor, there are always rich people on top, and multitudes of poor beneath them.
no brain no pain@hacks4pancakes Sadly that’s not a problem in the USA only…
canevecchio@hacks4pancakes @CosmicTraveler They can also purchase beachfront property on Baffin Bay—but only if Trump invades both Canada AND Greenland—which could be why Musk, Zuck, Cook, Thiel, Bezos, Andreessen, Ellison, and a partridge in a pear tree are suddenly so busy kissing his ass. (Yeah, Muskovites, I do know that’s not why. But Mastodon still allows us to afflict the comfortable, and this little fantasy does give you an idea what I really think of these craven scions of late capitalism.)
Iris Volk@hacks4pancakes Please clarify: If the last billionaires own everything - to whom will they sell stuff, they let their slave workers produce, to make more money in said collapsed economy?
PeachMcDBoots Riley's movie, Sorry to Bother You, is looking eerily prophetic
slotrak@hacks4pancakes except: a lot of that wealth is on paper, their assets financed, and not easily negotiable, entirely dependent on people needing what they have. It's in ships and inventory and Gigaplants.
MėMėNTō MōRi📍🇪🇺🇩🇪Class society in its purest form.
But the non-billionaires vote for them. Vote for a fascist who is now sticking his dirty fingers out at Panama, Canada and Greenland.
Art - US Expat in Spain@hacks4pancakes Do they not read the news and see that routinely military snipers now can take out targets from a mile or more away? One of these days someone outraged over their actions with those talents will silently take them out as they step off their yacht. History does not bode well for overreach. It would be worthwhile for us to let them know this.
Clinton Anderson SwordForHireI'll bet one could make a case that Billionaires (and Trillionaires) are the only ones who actually HAVE an economy.
We should take it away from them and give it to people who really need it.
#EatTheRich
#MakeCEOsAfraidAgain
#MakeBillionaresTerrifiedAgain
#FreeLuigi
#BeLuigi